Mercury
by robst

Comment:
I'm torn on this one. On the one hand, it's certainly a well detailed, smooth, clean, pleasantly aesthetic shot. Definitely causes a bit of a pause and a second look. There's also an element where the reflection of the blue looks kind of like eyes, thus adding a wonderful other-worldly aspect as well.

But then I hit the reflection of the drops in the surface, and the whole illusion is completely destroyed. It pulls me right out of the contemplation and back to "oh, right, this is just liquid metal on glass."

I guess what I'm saying is that I don't like the reflection for this particular shot, and feel that it detracts from the image as a whole.

Also, while I usually just let the ribbon winners stand without saying much on them, this is one of those shots where while it's a general DPC shot, my feelings are that it could have been so much more, and was moved to say something.

Message edited by author 2008-11-18 16:37:08.

the lid
by jpdoom

Comment:
On DPC, you can't just throw a random object on a piece of fabric, fire off a shot and hope for the best. Although I know first-hand that you have to start somewhere, so I'll give you some advice:

You need to find a way to dynamically portray your subject. Make it interesting for the viewer. Different angles, better lighting, unique viewpoints. A static straight-on shot is always going to score very, very low.

If using a surface as your background, it needs to be free of texture and wrinkles unless that texture is adding something important to the shot. In this case, it just looks, to the viewer, like very little care and attention has been given to the shot. The viewer wants to know that you care about your photography.

Avoid harsh highlights and shadows. Play with your lighting to eliminate these as best as you can.

Try, try, and try again.

9 out of 64
by Another_Statistic

Comment:
I like the concept a lot, although doing it with a hue/shade graduation would have solidified it. Dark to light, light to dark. This just seems more random than anything.

That typical DPC smoothness/sharpness isn't quite there either.

Cat Walk
by pawdrix

Comment:
This must be one of the better shots I've seen you post here. I've been keeping my eye on your work because of your views on Street Photography, but so far most of your work, for my tastes, has been pretty generic. This, however, I really like.

Waterfall in the Clouds
by MelonMusketeer

Comment:
I'll say that looks cool. Like an organic tower stretching into infinity.

Hindsight
by ucanoe

Comment:
The key to selective desat in basic editing is making sure that the color(s) you want to keep are NOT in any other area of the photo.

This photo, unfortunately, would probably not be doable in basic in any way because of all the similar colors in both the desat area and the saturated area.

Great Balls of Fire
by Tom

Comment:
Man, he needed to be naked. With the sun covering up just a little more. That would have been priceless.

As it is, those shorts are red. This is a blue challenge. 1.

(disclaimer: I didn't actually give this a one.)

Intense
by Jessi

Comment:
Some things I noticed right off the bat:

Your title is at odds with the photo itself. In my view, the only intensity is the contrast, which is ok, but in a portrait style photo like this (especially when trying to grab a 2 second voting audience), it actually plays against you. What people will be expecting with the title is an intensity either in the color itself (which is actually muted here), or in the expression of the model. This one's expression is more boredom.

You've missed the mark with focus as well. This image doesn't convey the typical sharpness needed to grab people on their pass-through, and it also doesn't carry enough to make most people remember it for a second pass-through. The facial expression is off-putting, as is the darkness of it.

As for connection with the challenge, you've got it with the coloring in the shirt, and there's some in the toning of the face, but over-all, the color is pretty muted, and again, at odds with your title. People tend to think that if they just get a connection with the challenge, that they should automatically get a 5 (not saying you do, but that's the prevailing thought).
However, this simply isn't true. It can nail the challenge perfectly, but if your technicals are fighting each other or not very strong, or the subject matter is off-putting or simple, or otherwise uneventful, that score is going to suffer hugely.

Having said all that, I suspect that you'll eventually even out to around a 4.05 - 4.25 by the end of the challenge. It's not a horrible photo, but there are a lot of smaller factors adding up that put it into that unfortunate realm of "DPC Forgettable".

*EDIT* I just got your shooting info, and I'll elaborate:

f/5.6 is a good aperture for portraiture, but it does depend on lighting. I'm confused as to your decision to leave the face in partial darkness, as a fill flash (bounced or softened), probably would have helped you get a little more focus and dynamic into the model. I'm also not sure that it's fully a focus problem, but there IS a noticeable softness and lack of detail in his face that will usually get lower votes.

The 1/60th tells me that you were metering on the darkness of the model. You might want to try using a different metering mode for future work of this type (unless, personally, this is a look you like. In which case, all the power, just remember that DPC is a different animal. hehe).

Personally, I would have shot this at about an f/4.5, with a 1/125 - 1/180 sec shutter speed, using fill-flash. If you don't have a flash, your best bet is to find a strong light and a piece of foam board as a reflector to get some light in that face. DPC will love you for it. ;)

That's about all I can add. I hope some of this helped.

Sharp as a blade
by cdpalma

Comment:
I suspect posting this after a Smoke challenge just ended is going to get you a lot of "I just voted 400 times on something like this!"

Timing is very important. ;)

Blue Zone
by VariationFilms

Comment:
Well, it's certainly blue. Not much else to it though. The gradient of light-fall off is out of place, the lack of any real play with the water leaves my eyes to scramble for purchase. Even as an abstract, it's just far too empty.